Hello and welcome back to Startups Weekly, a weekend newsletter that dives into the weeks noteworthy startups and venture capital news.
Before I jump into todays topic, lets catch up a bit.
Last week, I noted the big uptick in VC spending in 2019.
Before that, I struggled to understand WeWorks growth trajectory.Remember, you can send me tips, suggestions and feedback to kate.clark@techcrunch.com or on Twitter@KateClarkTweets.
If you dont subscribe to Startups Weekly yet, do that here, now, please, thanks.Anyways, onto todays topic.
Venture capitalists favorite company, Zoom, endured its first high-profile scandal this week.After security researcher Jonathan Leitschuh published a Medium post detailing a major security vulnerability within Zooms technology platform, the company patched its Mac video conferencing client to remove a rogue web server that allowed any website to join a video call without permission.
Users can now update their client or download the new version from Zooms website.
Apple has also pushed a silent update for Mac users removing the vulnerable component, a move meant to protect users both past and present from the undocumented web server vulnerability without affecting or hindering the functionality of the Zoom app itself.Zoom only made the call to remove the insecure web server after intense pushback.
Im not here to share my own opinions on Zooms security or lack thereof, what Id like to point out is the companys poor reaction to the PR nightmare.
Yes, Zoom ultimately provided a fix, but initially, it failed to solve the underlying issue.Zooms major hiccup comes shortly after users and onlookers attacked the exclusive email service Superhuman.
Superhuman tracks email you send and receive and gives you tools to help manage it.
They do this on your behalf, but without the permission of the recipient of your emails.Superhuman was much faster than Zoom to offer an official response amid complaints.
Just a couple of days after a blog post outlining security flaws within the service went viral, Superman announced it was going to remove location logging altogether, get rid of all existing location data, turn off read receipts by default and make them an opt-in feature for users.
This is all nice and good and definitely shifted attention away from the key issue: Pixel-tracking (embedding the commonly used advertising tool of a pixel in emails to report back to senders info like whether an emails been opened or not).
Superhuman still has the exact same pixel-tracking capabilities, whats changed is that users just need to turn on the feature.Startups and public companies alike will do what they can to maintain features that benefit their businesses and will go to great lengths to shift consumer attention away from key issues, even when that means putting their own users at risk.AnywaysTC Sessions: MobilityWe hosted our first-ever mobility-focused conference this week in San Jose.
In what was an incredibly successful, thought-provoking event, industry leaders gathered to discuss the issues plaguing startups, the future of micromobility, the scooter wars and more.
A whole lot of mobility news corresponded with the event, includingStartup CapitalWho raised money this week?New VC fundsWhich VCs closed new funds this week?Snaps startupsAfter generally being the butt of the public markets jokes since its IPO,Snap is having a killer 2019, with its stock price nearly tripling in value.
The successes are perhaps giving the company a moment to pause and think more about generating future value.
Part of that equation is certainly the companysYellow accelerator that aims to invest in pre-seed startups that bring mobile users to shared experiences.
We covered Yellows inaugural batchback in September; now TechCrunchs Lucas Matney has the full rundown on Snaps second class of bets.Bumble and Badoos bad weekFollowing an extensive report inForbes about Bumbles parent company and its billionaire founder Andrey Andreev, the female-first dating apps founderWhitney Wolfe Herd issued a statement on Tuesday.
While Wolfe Herd says she was mortified by the allegations and saddened and sickened to hear that anyone, of any gender, would ever be made to feel marginalized or mistreated in any capacity at their workplace, the exec also detailed that Badoo is currently conducting an investigation into the allegations, as well as compiling documentation to expose the factual inaccuracies that exist within the article.
Weve got Wolfe Herd and Forbes statement in full here, as well as more on Forbes explosive investigation.Extra CrunchFirst of all, if you still havent signed up for Extra Crunch, Im not sure what youre doing.
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